


Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me

by Nefertiti1052 (Succubusphan)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Marriage, Self-Doubt, alcohol mention, self deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Succubusphan/pseuds/Nefertiti1052
Summary: Dan and Phil wake up hungover after an eventful night out in Vegas and now have to deal with the consequences.Updates everyday until it's completed.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 64
Kudos: 59
Collections: Phandom Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the @phandomreversebang for team 23-1. Thank you @artlessdynamite for creating the amazing Art for this and providing yout opinion on the fic and to @antisocialbutterflie for being an amazing beta and putting up with my horrible time management skills.
> 
> [Art Link](https://artlessdynamite.tumblr.com/post/622131215913320448/this-is-the-art-that-i-made-for)
> 
> [PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3V9VYQgef1SQK7kzBMIlqP?si=X2nuiygCS1KEXuFgDEF2vw)

Dan rolled over in the bed, burying his face into his sweaty pillow and groaned; at this rate, the Las Vegas weather was going to kill him. He had a pounding headache, clear evidence of his poor choices the previous night. He checked between the sheets for his phone and unlocked it, scrunching his eyes at the glaring light. Two pm, of course. Going out to drink the previous night hadn’t been the best idea. Flashes of the broken memories kept dancing in his mind and, with each passing second, a sinking feeling was settling into the pit of his stomach. Yet, the most worrying matter at hand was that he felt _sore._ Sore in places he shouldn't be feeling as the result of an uneventful night out drinking; he had no recollection of how it had happened. Already worrying about how much he would have to regret his little escapade, he sighed loudly and stared at the ceiling of his hotel bedroom.

Without warning a pillow landed on his face at full speed. "Shut up!" huffed a voice right beside him.

Dan sat upright but regretted it immediately when the room started spinning. "Fuck!" yelled Dan, putting a hand to his forehead.

"Shut - up!" the voice sounded extremely annoyed.

Dan held his breath while he pulled the massive comforter from the person beside him. 'Please, please, don't be Phil,' he thought, but after 10 years of living together, there was no mistaking his voice for someone else’s.

It was Phil.

"Dan, if you don't let me sleep I swear to baby Jesus, I _will_ kill you."

"Phil!"

"Oh, my god! What do you want? It's too early." Phil finally opened his eyes, propped himself on his elbows and looked at the blurry figure beside him; he grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and put them on. When his eyes finally focused, he frowned.

"What happened last night?" Dan asked, even though he wasn't so sure that he wanted to hear that answer.

Phil’s eyes made their way down Dan’s torso and landed on the happy trail disappearing under the sheets. From his position, he could even see part of Dan’s hip and ass. He blinked in confusion. "Are you naked?"

Dan pulled the sheets closer to his crotch in a frail attempt to keep his modesty. "Yes, and so are you. What do you remember?"

Phil lifted the sheet from his own body to confirm that information and closed his eyes tightly with a sigh. He let himself fall back onto the mattress and covered his face with both hands, mumbling something under his breath.

"What?" asked Dan, not understanding a word of what Phil was saying but immediately noticing a sparkly golden ring on his finger.

Phil peaked through one of his hands. "I think we had sex."

Dan groaned and threw himself back onto his fluffy pillow. "I think it's worse than that, Phil."

Phil lowered his hands slowly, worry written all over his face. "Why, what else do you remember?"

Dan rolled to his side and grabbed Phil's left hand with his own, putting them right in front of Phil's eyes. "Did we get married?"

Phil's eyes widened. " _Surely_ not. How much did we drink last night?"

"Considering the rings, how sore my ass feels, and the amount of bite marks on your neck and shoulders... way too much," Dan traced a finger down Phil's neck.

Phil flinched away from the touch with an unreadable look upon his face. Without even making eye contact with Dan, he said: "I can't do this right now. I'm taking a shower and going for a walk.”

That hurt. Dan didn't know what he was expecting, but Phil leaving when they needed to figure this out together was just another blow to his heart. Dan might have laughed at the fact that Phil wrapped himself in one of the sheets to leave the bed as if he was a woman in a rom-com if the situation wasn’t so absolutely heart wrenching.

He pulled the comforter tight to his body and covered himself up to his neck, opting for pretending to be asleep until Phil left the room.

Half an hour later, he felt Phil standing beside the bed and vowed not to let him see his feelings. “Dan?” Phil asked softly, his voice sounded broken. It seemed like Dan couldn’t do ‘this’ either: he wasn’t ready to see Phil devastated again.

After what seemed like forever, Phil huffed and exited the room, shutting the door a bit too loudly.

Dan tossed and turned in bed trying to keep his mind off the situation, but the more he tried to forget, the worse he felt. He walked aimlessly inside the room, picking up the trail of clothes leading to the bed. Even the thought of them together made him sick. How could have they be so _stupid_? It had taken them so long to fix their friendship after their breakup and now- now Dan just didn’t know where they stood. Would Phil want to move out? Would he want to stop working with him? Dan couldn’t go through that again, he couldn’t lose Phil because of a stupid mistake.

Finally catching sight of his state in the mirror, he noticed that the events of the previous night were quite evident in his overall demeanour. He was in a hell of his own creation; despite the turmoil in his mind and stomach, his shoulders rested lower and more relaxed than they had in a while. He brought his left hand to the bruises on his collarbone, the sparkle on his finger made his heart skip a beat. He wished that he could remember what happened. He did and he didn’t.

‘How does one end married to the love of their life in such bittersweet circumstances?’

He couldn’t help but wonder. He yearned for the what ifs.

\---

_October 2012:_

_Even though Dan was in complete silence, the noise in his head was enough to drive him absolutely mad. His foot bounced incessantly as he angrily answered asks on Tumblr._

_He could only compare the feeling in his stomach with the sensation of free falling. He felt like the very ground he’d been standing on had been ripped from underneath his feet; he was falling and he couldn’t see the bottom, but if he had to guess, it wouldn’t be much further._

_Ever since their private video had been leaked to the public they had done everything they could to remove it from the internet, but every link they got removed turned into three new ones. Dan couldn’t stand the fact that people were going this far to dig into his private life, his past and the current state of his relationship with Phil. He didn’t want to share it with them. What he and Phil had was only theirs, no one else’s to look into or analyze._

_They could have come out but that wasn’t really an option for Dan. In some ways, he envied Phil because he was so much braver than him. He had come out to his family and friends years ago, but for Dan, the mere thought of calling himself gay triggered memories he had tried to keep tightly locked in a box, away from everyone- even Phil._

_After weeks of chasing every single repost of the video, Phil came to him with dark circles and a defeated look upon his face and hesitantly asked Dan if they could just come out. Dan felt the vile crawling up his throat at that suggestion; he wasn’t even to dignify that with an answer. Instead, he threw his head back and laughed maniacally. He laughed and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks._

_Phil kept pleading to just look at him, to talk to him, but Dan was gone. The real Dan was hiding in a dark corner of his mind and everything that remained was a shell of him, full of anger, shame and sarcasm._

_Dan had expected Phil to understand, after all, he was used to Dan’s lows, but what Dan had failed to notice was that he wasn’t the only one hurting. Phil had been outed as well, even more so since the video was his. Phil’s most precious memories and feelings out on display for everyone to see. He had laid down his entire heart for Dan, hoping to pull a smile out of him despite how much they missed each other since they didn’t get to spend their first Valentine’s Day together. Now everyone was getting to see him at his most vulnerable._

_“Dan, you need to stop this, you are lashing out. I was outed too, you know? You are not the only one having a shit time.”_

_“It’s so easy for you to just suggest that we fucking come out. You were already out to your family and friends and they love you and accept you, so you know this won’t affect you. Like yeah, maybe you will lose a few subscribers but that’s it.”_

_“I don’t care about my subscriber count right now, and I’m quite sure that your family already knows. Even if they didn’t, I’m sure that your family will still love you, Dan, if you just give them a chance. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”_

_“I am not **that**. I am not. And I’m not coming out. People can think whatever the fuck they want, I will deny it until the day I die.”_

_“You are acting like a child!”_

_“Yeah well then leave me the fuck alone. I didn’t ask you to come with your bullshit solutions. This is all your fault, you know? If you hadn’t made that stupid video this wouldn’t be happening.”_

_Phil closed his eyes as if he had just been slapped. When he finally opened them, Dan could see that they were filled with tears, but Dan felt miserable and misery likes company._

_“What is it that you are so afraid of? Even if we lost our jobs we could start over, together, and we’d be free to be ourselves. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”_

_“No,” Dan had crossed his arms like a petulant child. He didn’t really know where he was going with this. Phil was his everything, he knew that much, he just didn’t want things to change but it was too late for that._

_“Fuck Dan, why don’t you just fucking admit that you’re ashamed of us, of me, of our relationship. Stop being a fucking coward,” he had spat, a single tear rolled down his cheek but he’s wiped it away quickly._

_“You know what Phil? That’s it, that’s exactly it. You are such a fucking genius. It’s true, you are my dirty little secret and that’s all, so fuck off!” By then he had been unable to keep the sobs at bay._

_“Ok, this is it then. There’s nothing more to talk about. We’re done.”_

_Phil had slammed the bedroom door behind him and locked him out. Dan had attempted to talk to him so many times, to knock on the door, to let him know that he hadn’t meant any of it, but he hadn’t dared. He’d been terrified at the prospect of coming out, but that had nothing to do with Phil or their relationship._

_Days turned into weeks and weeks to months. He didn’t think this was something they could bounce off. They barely talked anymore, barely shared anything. He wasn’t ready to give up on them but he felt like Phil had already shut that door forever._

_After spending the holidays with their respective families, Phil had finally been the one to knock on his door._

_“Dan.”_

_“Oh, hi.” Dan had smiled hopefully. “Yes?”_

_“Can we stop this?” He had said with a trembling voice. “I miss my best friend.”_

_“Yes, yes, please.” Dan had rushed to him and wrapped him in a tight hug. “I’ve missed you too.”_

_They looked into each other’s eyes and for a moment, Dan thought that they were going to kiss, but Phil cleared his throat and pulled away from him. “Well, I’m glad we can still be friends,” he said, averting his eyes._

_Dan swallowed thick. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he was determined to not lose his best friend. He was nothing without Phil. “Of course, I’ll always be your friend.”_

_Phil had given him an unreadable look and invited him to watch anime on the sofa. That was the last time they had addressed the argument or their relationship._

_\---_

Dan hopped into the shower, trying to calm his mind down, but he couldn’t stop thinking. What if he hadn’t let his pain get the best of him? What if he had forgiven Phil for the things he said? What if he hadn’t broken Phil’s heart? What if he hadn’t given up on them?

When they were together he had daydreamed of being Phil’s husband so many times, but not like this. _Not like this._ The thought of losing Phil for a stupid mistake had him feeling nauseous. Phil had walked away from him and shut him out again and Dan felt like all his wounds had been reopened.

He couldn’t even cry anymore, he felt empty, so he did the next best thing. He stood in the shower until his fingers were pruny and a knock on the bathroom door pulled him out of his inner monologue.

“Dan? Are you in there?” Phil sounded worried.

“Yeah.” He turned off the tap.

“May I - may I come in?”

“What for?”

“I want to see that you are ok, I’ve been calling you for an hour.”

“Oh...sure.”

Phil opened the door gently and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Dan was fine, or at least in one piece. He grabbed a fluffy towel and wrapped it around Dan’s frame.

“God, Dan. How long have you been in here?” He frowned but continued rubbing the towel gently on Dan’s shoulders.

“I don’t know,” Dan said flatly.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

“It’s ok. I’m ok.” His voice sounded foreign, as if someone else was using his body to communicate.

“It’s not and I’m sorry. We need to talk about this. We are no longer kids, we need to figure this out.”

“Fine. I can dress by myself, you know?”

“I don’t think you brought anything with you,” he said looking around. “I’ll bring you some clothes and leave you to it.”

“Good.”

Once Dan put on some jeans and a shirt, he towelled his hair dry, took a deep breath, and finally left the safety of the bathroom.

Phil sat in one of the armchairs, sipping on a cup of coffee pensively. There was a nice brunch arranged on the table beside him. It had been clearly made by Phil with whatever he could find in the kitchenette, but it was still nicely put. His eyes met Dan’s, finally noticing his presence. He straightened up his back and placed the cup on the table, motioning to the chair opposite to him. “Sit.”

Dan took the other armchair and poured himself some coffee in an attempt to clear his head, but he remained silent.

“You should eat something,” Phil said, the look in his eyes indicated that he wasn’t asking.

“I don’t think I can right now.”

“Dan, please,” Phil said impatiently.

“Fine.” Dan grabbed a scone and nibbled on it, raising his eyebrows at Phil.

“Ok, so what do we do about this?” Phil made a vague gesture with his hands.

Dan hummed and after a few seconds, he asked: “The wedding or the fucking.”

Phil scrunched his nose. “Don’t say it like that.” He sighed and poured himself another coffee. “I meant the wedding. I found the certificate in the nightstand.”

“We could divorce or get an annulment once we get home, I guess.”

“So it’s legal. I thought they weren’t.”

“They are legal.”

“Which is the easier route?” Phil asked, even though Dan had dropped out of Law, he still remembered some of the stuff. It wasn’t a lot, but it made Phil always trust Dan’s opinion on legal matters better than his own.

“Annulment I guess. If a judge will grant it, of course.”

“What if they don’t?”

Dan really didn’t want to think about that; they needed to go back to normal as soon as possible. “We will need lawyers anyway. This is going to be a nightmare to keep quiet.”

“Well they have to keep the confidentiality, but in the meantime you should take your ring off. If we run into anyone, the speculations will start.” Phil stared at Dan’s hand, he was subconsciously fiddling with the ring.

Dan looked at Phil’s hand. “I see that you took it off already.” That didn’t sit well with Dan’s stomach so he left the unfinished scone on the plate.

“Yeah… I thought - I thought that we wouldn’t want anyone to find out about it, right?” Phil hesitated.

“Right.” Dan pressed his lips into a line.

“So we should let our lawyers know, maybe -” Phil was getting more and more agitated. His anxiety was once again trying to make him live 20 steps in the future.

“Phil,” Dan interrupted him. “We are both hungover, we’ve had _a night,_ I can barely keep anything in my stomach, let alone think about this. All I need to know is that we are ok.”

Phil took a deep breath. “We are, we are!”

“Still friends?” Dan asked, needing the reassurance.

“Friends,” replied Phil with a small smile.

“Great.”

Dan finally checked his phone, there were a few text messages from his mum which he planned on ignoring for the time being, and 60 missed calls from Phil in a lapse of almost two hours. He must have been really worried. The thought of Phil frantic in a panic because of him made him feel horrible but also a bit more reassured; ‘He cares.’

\---

They slowly moved around the room collecting their belongings to start packing and a few hours later they were on a plane home. Dan tried to remember anything of significance from the previous night but he only remembered yelling apologies at Phil at a party, some kissing, and drinks; anything after that was a blur.

Dan tapped the ‘next’ button on his recommended Spotify playlist and snorted. Ironic by Alanis Morisette started playing. _“It’s like meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife,_ ” more like “It’s marrying the man of your dreams and not remembering anything about it and being terrified that he hates you.”

Once they landed, Phil took over the task of getting their suitcases on a trolley and Dan decided to take his phone off airplane mode. His stomach dropped immediately. There were missed calls from their manager and quite a few text messages, from her, his Mum, his grandma, Bryonee, Tom, Wirrow, Louise, the list continued but he stopped scrolling. He tapped on his conversation with Marianne and as he read, his soul left his body. “Why didn’t you guys tell me you were getting married? It’s all over the news. What do you want to do about it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622092885086601216/dont-let-the-sun-come-down-on-me-chapter-1)


	2. Chapter 2

Once in their flat, Phil took his suitcase to his bedroom and started unpacking in an attempt to avoid jet lag; he was determined to wait until nighttime to sleep. Dan dropped his luggage and simply sat on his bed staring into space. Not long after Phil came looking for him, he leaned on the doorway and observed Dan for a few seconds before knocking. 

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been very quiet, are you ok?” Phil said in that low and raspy voice that made Dan weak; the one he used only when they were alone.

“Not really,” Dan admitted.

Phil’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Dan sighed, “but we have to, I guess.”

“Is it about the wedding?”

“Yes - well, no,” he huffed. “Haven’t you checked your phone yet?”

Phil frowned. “No, what -” Phil took his phone off airplane mode and panicked as he saw many missing calls from his mum and other family members. He also had a text from his father simply saying “Call me, please.” He rushed to Dan’s bed and sat down as he scrolled through his notifications. “Dan I think something happened, what if someone died. I can’t take any more losses.”

“No, no. It’s none of that,” Dan placed a comforting hand on Phil’s thigh. “I’m sorry, I should have just said it. I’m just waiting to wake up from this nightmare.” He took a deep breath and before continuing. “Marianne said that the wedding is all over the news, things were leaked. I don’t know- I stopped reading. Pictures or something.”

“Oh. Well, that’s shit.”

Dan smiled at Phil’s tone. “Yeah but at least now you know nobody in your family died, so there’s that.”

“Yeah… that was what I was going to say,” Phil said with a sigh.

“I guess that puts things into perspective a bit, right?” Dan asked, feeling a bit calmer about the situation. ‘This could be worse,’ he thought.

“ _Yeah_. Ok, so… do we tell them that it was an accident? Do we deny it? Do we get divorced right away?”

Noticing how Phil was slowly becoming uneasy, Dan tried to make him focus on the plan of action. “I think we need to go through what was leaked to see how we are going to respond. The question is: Do we tell Marianne we fucked up?”

“Uuhhh, depends on how mad she is.” Phil opened his conversation with her and felt his stomach drop when he saw the congratulations from her and the rest of the team. Everyone seemed absolutely on board with it. Phil passed his phone to Dan displaying the picture of their managing team and the IRLmerch team with what looked like glasses of champagne. Marianne, Martyn and Cornelia were in the centre holding up a big sign that said “Congratulations!” and it was decorated with different drawings of hearts and smaller congratulations from each of their employees in a smaller font.

“Awww. Well… that’s a no, then,” said Dan.

“Yeah. Let's see what the damage is.”

They sat scrolling for a long time, most news articles were written in a rush and said basically the same things, as more pictures and even a video appeared, the different websites just kept making more and more pieces on them. 

Dan looked at the pictures, clearly taken by someone in the chapel but it seemed they hadn’t been hiding. The one that caught his attention had Dan smiling into a kiss, his dimple and rosey patch on display, his hands cupping Phil’s cheek; he looked absolutely happy. Phil had his arms around Dan’s lower waist and seemed to be pulling him closer. 

“They seem to be having fun,” said Phil, pulling him out of his musings. He was leaning over and looking at the picture in wonder.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah and now we are paying the consequences.”

Phil shifted in the bed, briefly before deciding to sit against the headboard. “Does this remind you of anything from that night? I have only flashes.”

Dan shook his head sadly. “Same. Not enough to put together a timeline or the reasoning behind this.”

Phil crawled to him and hastily took Dan’s phone from his hand, tossing it onto the other side of the bed. 

“Oi!” Dan screeched

“Enough of that. What’s done it’s done.” He settled back against the headboard. We need to get our story straight and remember it,” he paused. “Besides, everyone else having opinions on our personal lives, I would really appreciate it if my mother didn’t kill me. I’ll be in enough trouble as it is for getting married without inviting her or even telling her.”

Dan hadn’t thought about that. “My grandma is going to murder me while my mum cheers her on.” 

“So we agree that we are not telling them about this being an accident, right?”

“I would _literally_ rather jump off a cliff.”

Phil pursed his lips thoughtfully. “How can we word it so they feel more inclined to forgive us?”

“We could say… that we’ve been back together for a few months, just trying it out. Then, we took the trip to Vegas for my birthday to spend some time working on the relationship and we decided that after so long it just felt right,” Dan suggested. “We’ll give it a few months and then we can say it didn’t work out and we decided to divorce on friendly terms.”

“Ok. I guess that could work. Now we need to start wearing the rings or they’ll suspect something is up.”

Dan pursed his lips. “What if I lose it?” 

Phil huffed. “Dan, are they even real gold? We could just get new ones.”

“I mean… yeah, but I don’t want to lose it….” Dan frowned.

Phil gave him a questioning look but remained silent. 

“It’s just - well, they have zoomed in pictures of the rings and they are not simple gold bands.” Actually, Dan didn’t want to lose the one physical proof that they had gotten married. Besides the certificate, of course. He felt weirdly attached to the ring now.

“Oh, right. I should look for mine then. It’s ok, just don’t take it off and you won’t lose it.” 

Without waiting for an answer, Phil left in the general direction of his bedroom, presumably to find the ring. Dan took the opportunity to start unpacking as well to keep his mind busy, but he only made it halfway through before his phone started ringing insistently. It was his mum. Dan hadn’t gone to church in over a decade, but he looked up and did a silent prayer before answering. ‘Please don’t let my mum hate me, please please.’

“Hi?”

“Daniel James, I didn’t raise you to be this insensible!” Karen sounded furious.

Dan’s heart dropped to the floor, ‘Here it comes,’ he thought; the moment he had been fearing for his entire life.

“Getting married without your mother, without your grandmother!” said Karen.

‘Oh!, ok,’ that was not what he had expected to hear. “Mum, Mum! Please, I know you are shocked, but listen -”

“Daniel, why did you do such a thing? Popsie and I are very upset about missing our eldest grandson’s wedding. We thought this day was never coming and now we find out that you got married in Las Vegas!” Said his grandmother.

It was a dual attack, they had him on speaker. He didn’t stand a chance. “What? Nanna, please -”

Phil walked into the room with his phone on his hand, looking a tad paler than usual. “Dan, my Mum wants to speak to you.”

Dan gave him a look and pointed to the phone in his hand. He wasn’t sure if Phil was too scared of his own family to notice that he was already on a call or if he just wanted to keep his phone as far away from him as he could manage. Before Dan could say anything, Karen interjected. “Oh, good! She will likely tell you the news. We expect to have you here, no excuses and don’t think this conversation is over, and Bear?” she paused, before continuing with a much sweeter tone. “Congratulations. I know you two will be happy together, please tell Phil that we love him.” 

“Such a nice boy,” said his grandma before the call was disconnected.

Dan sat on his bed in shock for a second before Phil thrust the phone into his hand. “Hello?” he said with a small voice. Thankfully, Kath sounded much calmer than his own family. “Daniel, darling, how are you doing?”

“Good?” He frowned, looking at Phil, who merely made a gesture encouraging him to continue. “Great! Great! We are just a bit tired, you know… because of the plane. We _just_ got home.”

Phil smiled and nodded. Dan was glad to have apparently caught the appropriate tone needed for whatever Kath wanted from him.

“Oh, good. I’ll keep this short then. Since you two lovebirds decided to go and get married without your families, Karen and I have decided to organize a Howell-Lester family reunion for this weekend. We will all be going down to Wokingham and staying from Friday night until Sunday night so we can all get better acquainted. Besides, Karen and I haven’t seen each other in years! It will be a great opportunity to catch up.”

Dan looked at Phil, who merely shrugged. “Ok?” 

“Good, good. I’m glad that you boys finally got back together. We have been waiting for years, your mother and I.”

Dan looked into Phil’s eyes, wondering what his mother had told him. “Really?” Phil threw him a questioning look but Dan ignored it.

“Yes, yes, of course! We could tell the love was still there, you know. You are not very good at hiding it,” she said teasingly.

Dan’s stomach was twisting into knots. “Yes, I guess so…” he cleared his throat. “Anyways, it will be good to see you again.”

“It will be marvellous! Well, I just wanted to officially welcome you to the family, not that you weren’t a part of it before, but now even more so!”

“T-thank you.” Dan wished that was the truth.

“And Dan?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry about bringing a cake. We will take care of that. We don’t want any inappropriate decorations, now, _do we?_ ” She was never going to let go of the Philussy cake thing.

Dan spluttered. “No, of course! See you on Friday! Bye!” He said in a rush and hung up.

Phil stood there in shock. “Dan!” he said barely above a whisper. “Did you just hang up on my mum?” 

‘Shit.’ “Ummm, no?”

“Give me my phone, I’ll text her quickly.” Phil sent a short apology in his “husband's” name, but his mum said it was ok. She was busy anyway, finishing up details with Dan’s mum and grandma. He let out a sigh of relief. 

Dan let himself fall back onto the bed and covered his face with his hands. “God. Women are crazy.” 

Phil settled down beside him. “They are! And exhausting!”

“Yeah.” Dan looked at Phil and sighed, this was going to be a long weekend.

For the second time that week, they woke up on the same bed; only this time they were still clothed and tangled up together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622186700906676224/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-2)


	3. Chapter 3

They decided to avoid questions by turning their phones off for two days. After all, they still needed to come to terms with everything that had happened. So once they let their families know they were taking a break from technology, they started working out the details of how this was going to work. 

They needed to start getting comfortable with the idea of projecting the subtle intimacy they used to have as a couple; the lingering touches, the looks, maybe even the kisses. So they decided to just start doing more things together, sitting closer to each other and overall just go with it, trying not to talk or think about it too much. The thing that they were most terrified about was the conversations with their families, both as a group and in private. There was absolutely no doubt that at some point during the weekend they were going to be pulled aside and questioned on the whole ordeal. 

That was not all either. Dan still couldn’t believe that his family had found out - or apparently gotten the confirmation - that he was gay through the fucking news, and they didn’t even care! If he could have gone back in time and told his younger self that this would happen, he wouldn’t have believed it for a second. He had had such a hard time coming to terms with his own sexuality that he’d always assumed his family would’ve hated him as he had hated himself. He vowed to have a deeper conversation with his mother, about his relationship with Phil and about his sexuality in particular. He owed himself as much.

Having already navigated the difficult waters and awkward moment of waking up tangled together, the other challenges seemed to be much simpler. They were able to cook in an enjoyable silence, merely passing ingredients and switching tasks when needed. Even in the small things, the years they had lived together and their compatibility made it so they worked in perfect harmony. Dan found comfort in that; knowing that what they once had was still there in some ways, deeply ingrained on their minds; on their hearts.

Cuddling together on the sofa was a bit awkward and required some discussion about boundaries, but they eventually relaxed into it. One point they hadn’t agreed on was the kissing. Phil wanted to talk about it but Dan didn’t; he also didn’t want to find himself in the awkward situation of kissing Phil in front of his family and freak out, so he just asked Phil to kiss him naturally at some point during the night. Phil merely gave him a pained look but nodded.

They settled on watching Buffy since they couldn’t decide on a movie. Dan tried to relax during an entire episode but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Thankfully, once the tension between Buffy and Faith started escalating, Dan was finally able to concentrate on the show and settle into his sofa crease with a sigh. Phil took the opportunity to shift as well, settling himself closer to Dan and wrapping one arm around him. It felt so natural that Dan barely noticed. 

Moments later, Phil started tracing patterns on Dan’s arm, causing Dan to give him a questioning look, but instead of replying Phil simply pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He pulled back briefly, looking into Dan’s eyes, searching, only to press their lips together again. This time Dan responded. 

It was but a gentle kiss, their lips softly moving together, but Dan felt like he was about to lose his mind. He was trying not to get too into it, but Phil decided to switch his attention to Dan’s jaw and a treacherous moan escaped him, making them both freeze. 

Dan cleared his throat and looked anywhere but Phil. “I think I should go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

“Sure, um. Good night.”

Dan cursed himself as he walked to his bedroom. 

\--

The fateful day had arrived. The train ride was not long enough in Dan’s opinion. He’d had a bit of a freak out about their families’ reactions but Phil had reminded him that they had only expressed regret about not being present for the wedding and how rushed it had been; nobody had questioned their relationship or their sexualities. Dan had merely nodded and let Phil give him a comforting hug. 

During the ride, Phil had noticed the panic rising in Dan once again so he’d put a hand on his own. Dan looked at their linked hands with their rings shining in the sunlight and smiled at him before staring out the window for the rest of the trip. 

\--

Once they made it to Dan’s family home, they stood at the door for a moment before Dan took a deep breath and knocked. To their surprise both Kath and Karen opened the door, each wrapping their own son in a hug and kissing their cheeks before switching around as they laughed. Colin barked and jumped at their feet the entire time. 

Before their mothers could attack them with questions they excused themselves to Dan’s old bedroom to drop off their bags. They stalled as long as they could and ran over their story briefly before deciding to join the rest of the party. Dan opened his bedroom door and pressed a quick kiss to Phil’s lips before hurrying down the stairs. Phil stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened.

Luckily, only part of Phil’s extended family had made it and Dan couldn’t help but be grateful for small miracles. It was only Kath, Nigel, Martyn and Cornelia from his side, plus Dan’s grandparents, Karen and Adrian. Dan’s father hadn’t come; no surprise there.

After they all settled down in an irregular circle around the living room, the questioning started. Dan couldn’t help thinking this felt like a mock trial, and boy, had he hated those. Dan and Phil sat together in one of the sofas. Each had their family scattered to one side of the room; Dan’s to their right, and Phil’s to their left. 

“Well,” said Nigel, “Are you going to tell us why you decided to get hitched?”

“It wasn’t a decision per se,” said Phil thoughtfully. “We got back together a few months ago and with so much work we hadn’t really had the time to fully focus on ourselves as a couple, so we decided to take a trip to Vegas for Dan’s birthday.”

“I didn’t know you had been together before,” said Adrian, raising his eyebrows and sipping from his coffee mug. 

“Oh, honey, you were too young to realize, but I knew,” said Karen with a smile.

“But he never said anything,” Adrian insisted. 

“I - I just wasn’t ready to talk about it. It was hard - it still is sometimes.”

Karen gave Dan a soft look. “Bear, I understand. I always suspected but I wanted you to tell me on your own terms. What I’ve always known is that you loved Phil.”

Dan's heart broke a little bit more just by hearing that. He gave her a sad smile. “Yeah.”

“I would have supported you, you know?” said Adrian. 

Dan blinked in surprise. “I - thank you. I’m glad to hear that.”

“It’s hard to come out to your family, it took me a while as well,” said Phil in a defensive tone.

Kath extended a hand towards her youngest son and gave him a comforting squeeze. “It’s true. Everyone does it in their own time.”

“I’m a bit shocked to know that you got back together; you kept it well hidden even from us,” Martyn interjected.

“We didn’t want to jinx it. After all, we didn’t know if it would work and we knew you lot would be disappointed,” Phil bit back. 

“I think we can all understand the need to get away and work on your relationship, but why marry away from your family?” Questioned Verónica, popsie nodding beside her. 

“Well, we … didn’t necessarily plan to get married in Vegas. It just… kind of happened?” Dan shrugged. The look his grandparent gave him made him and Phil wince. 

“How do you _kind of_ end up getting married, Philly?” Martyn asked with a smile. Cornelia slapped his shoulder softly with a mildly reproaching look. “Be nice,” she whispered.

Nigel joined him. “Yes, how _do_ you kind of get married?”

“We were out celebrating -” Dan started.

“Having a nice dinner,” Phil continued. 

“Very romantic, with candles and champagne, and we discussed our previous problems; what had caused our previous break up…” Dan looked at Phil. This had not been a part of their plan, he was already fucking up, he could only hope that Phil would follow his queue.

“Yes, and we vowed to never make the same mistakes again. We apologized and decided to just get married.”

“Exactly, we were in Vegas, which was the last place we had visited together as a couple. It was special to us, so we decided to stop wasting time and get married. We’ve been together for over ten years now, even if we weren’t in a relationship the entire decade, so we felt like it was time,” Dan concluded. For the life of him, he didn’t know what the hell he was saying, he was going to blame it all on his theatre kid traits and gay panic.

“Yes, we felt like it was coming for a long time,” Phil said.

“So what I’m gathering is that you got smashed and got married on a whim,” Martyn said teasingly. 

“Of course not!” Phil said but his blush said otherwise.

“There was a video…” Adrian pointed out.

“I didn’t see a video,” said Verónica. 

“Me neither,” agreed Karen. 

“There might have been shots involved as well,” admitted Dan, trying to get everyone’s attention from that goddamn video. He had given up and watched it the previous night and it consisted of them yelling they were sorry to each other and then what he would have described as sucking face more than kissing. 

“Daniel, I am in shock!” said Karen. “I can’t believe you got married on a whim while drunk.”

Before Dan could defend himself his grandma interjected. “Well, you didn’t get married while drunk but you weren’t much different when you were younger.” 

“Mother!” Karen said defensively, putting a hand to her chest.

“Ah, well I guess we are both bad, so you can’t complain about me,” Dan laughed. 

“What is a mother to do if she can’t complain about her demon children?” Kath said jokingly.

“You can complain all you want, Kath, since we all know Phil was possessed as a child,” Dan joked.

“That’s it, I want the divorce!” cried Phil causing everyone to laugh. It was going to be a long weekend but the first crisis had been averted. 

\--

Dinner was fairly uneventful, except for Colin eating yet another vegan dessert before the family could get to it. Phil was grateful for that one.

After a long game of scrabble, they retired for the night. 

Dan was too tired to resist the urge to cuddle up to Phil, especially when Phil waited for him in bed with open arms and tired eyes. They drifted off to sleep only moments later. 

\--

Thanks to his bladder, Dan woke up inhumanly early the next day. After he got that out of the way, he was tempted to crawl back into Phil’s arms, but he decided to finally rip the plaster off. He followed the familiar voices down to the kitchen. His mother was having breakfast with Adrian; some sort of vegan sludge and coffee. 

“Hi,” Dan said hesitantly. 

Karen put a hand on his shoulder and asked: “Good morning Bear, would you like some coffee and cereal?”

“Yes, please.” She turned around and about preparing the coffee. Dan took a seat at the table and waited for his breakfast. In a way, every time he returned home was like regressing back in time; he felt like a child again. The difference was that his mother dotted on him more now that he was an adult. “Mum, can we talk?” He asked, looking at Adrian more than to her.

“Of course, love,” she replied, looking over her shoulder before continuing with her task. “What do you want to talk about?”

Dan didn’t answer, he just stared at Adrian pointedly. 

Adrian huffed. “Fine, I was going for a run anyway,” he said before kissing his mother on her temple and heading out the back door. 

“This is hard,” Dan admitted. “I’ve wanted to talk about this with you for years, but I was terrified.”

Karen finally poured the coffee, setting in front of him and handed him the cereal and milk. She leaned back against the counter giving him her entire attention. “What? That you were dating Phil?”

He sighed. “In part. Also, about my sexuality. I didn’t think you knew.”

“Well, I didn’t _know,_ because you never told me. But I assumed.” She took a sip of her own coffee. “Mostly because I could tell how much you loved Phil, and how much you suffered when you broke up. That was the biggest clue.”

“You never said anything,” he said in a small voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it. But I did make sure to call you and invite you over when you were sad. Do you remember that?”

Dan thought for a moment. That entire year was a blur, but he did remember her calling him. He also remembered ignoring most of her calls. “Yes, sorry. I wasn’t ready. I’m not sure I’m ready now.”

“It’s ok to be gay, you know?” She said with a soft look. 

“I … I don’t know if I can even say it out loud. People growing up, they made my life hell for it.” His voice cracked.

“I’m sorry, I should have been there for you.” She looked sad. Dan knew that she blamed herself for a lot of the things he had to go through as a child, but he knew that she had done the best she could. She had suffered too.

He looked down into his own mug before looking into her eyes.“It’s ok, I found Phil. He was the first person I could be myself around.”

“I’m glad that you had someone. He is such a nice boy. I’ve always liked him.” She took another sip of her coffee. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you break up back then?”

“There was a video. Private. Just for our eyes,” he paused to gather his thoughts. “He posted it to Youtube, set so only we could see it - it was when we last went to India.” She nodded, so he continued. “Phil and I were sad that we didn’t get to spend our first Valentine’s day together so he sent me this video that made me feel like I was flying. I cried a lot when I saw it,” he smiled sadly. “In 2011 there was a glitch on Youtube and it became public. We were able to ask people not to share it since our following was still small. But in 2012 someone reposted it to Tumblr and there was no way to contain it, every time we got it removed, more versions appeared. So we said it was a prank that we were going to upload but decided against but most people didn’t buy it. They shared it, some made fun of us for it, some people were homophobic about it.” He paused and sipped on his coffee. “Our entire relationship and our feelings became a laughing stock. We were so _tired_... Phil asked me if we could just come out and I snapped.” Dan hadn’t realized he was crying until his mum wiped his tears with a paper towel. 

“Oh, baby...” she said, her own eyes filled with tears. 

“I was so mean to Phil. I loved him, and I hated him for making that video and for asking that of me. And I was jealous because he was out but I didn’t have the guts to do it. I thought everyone would hate me, like when I was in school. So I said things I didn’t mean, but I thought we could fix it. The thing is that I didn't try, and he didn’t try either, so we went back to being friends - eventually.”

“It breaks my heart that you had to wonder how we would feel about you. I always wondered when you were growing up. I knew you were special, sweeter, more caring, and I’ve always loved that about you. You are still the same. Gay or not, your family will always love you. We always have.”

“Thank you, Mum. I really needed to hear that,” he smiled through the tears. 

“You are my son. You might be a man almost twice as tall as me, but to me, you will always be my baby; my little bear.” 

Dan got up from his chair and hugged her, picking her up from the floor as if she was nothing but a doll. “I love you, Mum. Even if I don’t say it enough.”

“I love you too. Now put me down- you are squeezing me,” she laughed. “I’m so glad that you and Phil got back together after all. I just wished I would’ve been there on your big day.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that big, I hardly remember it to be honest,” he laughed, his eyes still a bit teary. “Phil and I, we have always been kind of married anyway. It was just another step in that direction.”

“Still, it’s something to celebrate.” She placed a hand on his arm and gave it a little squeeze.

“Well, we are all here now. Let’s celebrate, just us. That’s who we would have invited anyway.”

“Ok, let’s see what we can pull in a day,” she smiled.

\--

The rest of the day was spent sharing stories and home videos from when Dan and Phil were children. Their mothers had not forgotten a single photo album, but Dan had been quick enough to snatch the one that included naked baby pictures of himself before Kath could grab it. 

Their families got along better than they could have dreamt. Dan wished this could have been real instead of just a farce to cover up a mistake, but he tried to not linger on it too much. He had enough regret in his life as it was. 

Adrian suggested that they took advantage of the golden hour to take some pictures of them and the family, since Karen had mentioned she really wanted to add more to the album. Phil thanked Adrian before Dan could say no; not that they would have managed to get out of it. Everyone went their way to get ready for the photoshoot. To their surprise, Martyn and Cornelia had set up music as well to get some nice shots of what would have been their first dance. The garden looked nice and tidy for once, the last sun rays filtering through the leaves of the weeping willows providing a nice scenery for the occasion.

Once they had relaxed a bit into the situation, they were able to get some really good looking shots. 

Dan ended up taking Adrian to the side and thanking him for the gesture. “You didn’t need to do this, you know?”

Adrian smiled at him for the first time in a long time. “I know, but I wanted to give you this as a present since all the pictures I saw were pretty shit. Well, except for the kiss one, but I think you should take another one.”

“I was hoping to get away without having to kiss Phil in front of the family,” Dan smiled. 

Adrian smiled and gave him a one shoulder shrug. “Hey, next time get married with your family present and they won’t pester you with all the pictures or celebrations.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works. They would have found a way to be very involved in the preparations, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Adrian laughed and pushed Dan gently.

“You still need a picture of the kiss!” Cornelia yelled excitedly from across the yard. 

Phil groaned, “I don’t want to make out in front of my family,” he whined.

Kath scoffed. “Nobody said you needed to make out. It will be just a kiss! Besides you didn’t mind doing that in front of anyone when you were younger!”

Everyone laughed, even Dan’s grandparents. Phil simply looked away and covered his face with his hands. 

“He also did it in that video that’s going around!” Martyn added.

“You saw it too?” Dan groaned. 

“You bet,” said Cornelia with a laugh. “Marianne didn’t think the wedding news was real so she looked into every single gossip website and that video had her laying down on the floor.”

“Crying or laughing?” asked Dan.

“Both!” replied Martyn and Cornelia in unison. 

Phil threw them a dirty look which caused Dan to laugh and simply extend his hand toward him. “Come on, let’s just get this picture out of the way,” Dan said, slowly guiding him to the nicest looking tree in the yard. 

Phil took his hand and followed him with a smile. They stood beneath the fullest tree, looking at each other intensely for a couple of seconds before Phil closed the distance between them. The kiss was soft and sweet, yet Dan felt the wind had been knocked out of him, his stomach flipping over. 

He was about to pull back when he felt Phil smile into the kiss as he bit his lips softly. Dan tried not to react, but he wasn’t expecting Phil to dip him as if they were in a romantic movie, making their families cheer. The few good pictures they got in those seconds were worth the fall.

\--

Sunday roast was, in Dan’s opinion, what made the weekend worth it. That, and getting to spend time with his family knowing that they still loved him, even if he was married to another man. 

If he was being honest with himself, that last day felt less awkward than the previous two, Maybe it was the fact that they knew they would be leaving soon, or maybe it was the fact that Martyn and Adrian had finally run out of jokes. 

Only Karen and Kath joined the boys in the kitchen for afternoon tea. They had a nice time looking over the pictures taken the previous day, but good things can never last for them. Dan realized his mentions were blowing up again so he checked twitter with dread written all over his face. 

“What’s wrong, darling?” Kath asked him. 

“I’m trying to find out; people are freaking out again.”

Phil frowned but he started going through his notifications as well. “What now?”

“Oh, ok I guess,” Dan said, pursing his lips. 

Karen sat beside Dan and placed a hand on his arm. “What happened?”

He tapped the picture open and showed it to her. “Someone took a picture of us on the train on the way here, and we were holding hands, so people think it’s cute.”

Phil leaned over his shoulder and observed the photo. “Well… at least we look good,” he said bitterly.

“I’m sorry that you have to go through this,” said Kath. 

Dan put his phone away. “We usually don’t mind; we never say no to pictures with subscribers but I wish they didn’t take pictures without our consent. I don’t know, it just makes me feel a bit like a circus animal.”

“I’m just glad that people are not being malicious about your relationship this time,” Karen said with a sad smile.

“I don’t know, I haven’t checked at the comments. I’m not ready for that yet,” Dan said.

“I haven’t either but Mar said they were mostly good, so we should check that at some point.”

“Not today, though,” Dan said, it was more of a secret plea to Phil to not push him on this for now. 

“No, not today,” Phil agreed.

Kath looked at them pensively. “You will get through this, don’t you worry.”

\---

Once they made it back to their flat, they went to their respective beds to finally get some time alone. 

Dan started to come down from the strange good mood he had been during the weekend as he looked at the pictures. He wished that he could live in a world where Phil still loved him back, where they were still together. He sniffled a little as he made it to the photos of them smiling at each other with the sunset in the background; love was written all over his face. God, he was so in love with Phil still; he felt as if his heart could crawl right out of his throat. But he had ruined that chance for himself years ago. 

He swiped to the next image and the tear that he had been trying to hold in finally fell. The entire sequence of their kiss, the dip and their fall had been captured perfectly. Aesthetic in a messy way. He wiped the tear off his cheek and looked up as he heard a knock on his opened door; Phil was leaning against it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622274240765411328/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-3)


	4. Chapter 4

“Everything ok?” Phil asked with a frown.

Dan smiled sadly. “Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “What’s up?” He patted the bed next to him.

“I just wanted to show you the comments we got, I think you should see them.” Phil entered and sat on the bed beside Dan.

“How bad is it?” Dan asked with a shaky breath, he wasn’t ready for a wave of hate.

“Not bad at all,” Phil smiled. “I mean, not from the people we care about. Our subscribers are swimming in happiness, other youtubers have sent us well wishes, Jenna even sent me a dm with a video with congratulations and she was on the verge of crying,” he paused. “There are homophobes commenting in some of the gossip magazine articles but our viewers have drowned them; I had to scroll all the way down to find those.”

“Wow, I - I didn’t expect that,” Dan admitted.

“That’s not all,” Phil passed him his phone. “I went through the #Phanwedding tag on Tumblr; it has been trending since the pictures started to leak. They are happy, they feel supported.” He smiled. “So many of our followers are queer. They have written long essays about how happy they are for us, _and_ how our story has given them hope about finding love. Some of them posted pictures of their partners as well. We have so many lesbian couples following us, it’s amazing,” he finished with a laugh.

Dan smiled as he scrolled but the tears started falling from his eyes again. This time they were bittersweet tears. He felt relief, love, acceptance. Their relationship with their audience had come such a long way; it seemed like the people that had stuck with them all this time were the good ones. Sometimes Dan forgot that the people that followed them in 2020 weren't the same as 2012, or maybe a few of them were, but they had grown and changed; _he_ had grown as a person as well. 

But he also felt heartbroken because their happiness was nothing but a sham. Dan craved the approval of their audience and their peers, often feeling like he didn’t deserve everything he had; like he wasn’t talented or interesting enough. Now he was also living a lie, letting people think that he had finally found the courage to be free, but he hadn’t.

Phil wrapped an arm around him and rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. Dan didn’t have it in him to resist the urge, so he leaned into him. 

He cried until his head hurt and he felt his emotions settling down to a more manageable level. Without a word, Phil helped him get into bed and tucked him in, but when he turned to leave, Dan caught his hand. “Stay. Please,” he whispered.

Phil hesitated for a moment, but finally joined him in bed, leaving a space for Dan to cuddle up to him, which he readily took. The warmth Phil radiated, helped him feel more relaxed. 

For the first time in ages, Dan fell asleep with a smile on his lips. He could have sworn that he felt a kiss to his temple, but that had probably been a dream. 

\--

In the following weeks, they slowly rolled back into their work lives. In a way, being a couple of newlyweds resembled having to come out of the closet in the sense that every new group of work friends they saw, they had to do a recount of events, explain that they’d secretly gotten back together but they had wanted to keep it to themselves. It was torture. Martyn and Cornelia working with them added a new layer of awkwardness, since they added their own little spice to the story while showing some of the pictures to the close knit staff of the IRL merch team. 

Soon, they decided that enough was enough. They decided to make it more clear that they didn’t appreciate all of the fuss about their wedding and that they planned to continue about their business as usual. Not because they didn’t want to celebrate or because they weren’t happy, but because they liked to keep some things more private and they felt like the wedding itself hadn’t been as important as them getting back together. 

That excuse had worked fairly well at first, but some of their close friends had them making the rounds on game nights and dinner get-togethers. All in all, they started to feel like throwing one big party would have been less exhausting. 

The person who they had agreed to avoid at all costs was Bryonee, because they knew she would not drop the subject at some cheesy story and a few pictures. She knew _all of it_ ; probably more than anyone else. She had been there for them separately when they had broken up, she had witnessed the foundations of their new friendship and how they’d settled back into it, but she hadn’t seen any indication of them getting back together before Vegas and that could be their downfall. 

Dan knew he wasn't going to get away with it since he was a terrible liar, so he saddled Phil with the task of answering her messages and making excuses. Knowing full well that something was up, she facetimed Dan early enough for him to be on the verge of waking up; luckily for them, Phil had- once again- stayed the night in Dan’s bed and had merely taken the phone from his hand before he could react and took the call himself.

He told her that Dan was still too sleepy to answer which made her narrow her eyes, but the fact that he was shirtless and in Dan’s bed with a seemingly sleeping Dan gave them some credibility.

With so many get-togethers and having to keep the pretence up at work, it got easier and easier for them to fall back into their old habits. In the following months and almost without notice, they started sharing more and more activities; things that one of them would have taken over before, now were a joint effort. 

They started cooking together, going grocery shopping, even when they had started working out in recent years, they had adjusted to very different routines, but now they were both going for runs, doing yoga, and stretching. 

Thursdays had been officially declared movie night. No matter how much work there was to do, they had agreed to enjoy their night, watching a movie, eating popcorn- and cuddling. 

With each passing week, the lingering touches, the hugs, the sleeping together- but especially the cuddling- had started to feel more and more natural. 

Dan started to notice something was not right when the random kissing started. The first time, he’d simply announced that he was going to take a shower and without a thought, they had leaned in for a quick peck, which had startled them both. In the risk of having to discuss that, Dan had just turned on his heels and left. 

Once in the bathroom, Dan leaned onto the door with a sigh. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game, tethering on the line between a close friendship with a romantic relationship, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to feel this so desperately. Deep down he knew that he was a hindrance in Phil’s life, always having to depend on him to help him crawl out of the dark moods he got into, but just for now, he allowed himself to be selfish. ‘It’s fine, Phil can put a stop to it if it gets too much,’ he thought. 

\--

Dan entered the flat, dropping his keys on the expensive bowl they had set in the entryway for that purpose. The meeting with some BBC producers had run late and he was knackered.

“Phil?” He looked around the flat, his nose guiding him to the kitchen. 

“Oh, hi,” Phil smiled. He was wearing an apron and stirring what looked like dinner.

“Started without me, have you?” Dan said as he stood behind Phil and put his hands on the other’s waist.

Phil leaned back, pressing his back to Dan’s chest. “Hmm, made pasta.”

“Yum, I’m hungry,” Dan whispered into Phil’s ear. 

Phil turned briefly toward him and gave him a quick peck on the lips before turning off the stove. “Take the wine while I serve this, please.”

“Sure.”

Dan was touched by the care Phil had put into setting the table. The roses added a sort of romantic vibe without being over the top. In a way, this felt more like a date than a casual dinner, but maybe that was exactly what he needed after a long day.

Dinner was nice. They discussed everything and nothing at all, as usual, but Phil’s entire demeanour was different, he was acting like the perfect boyfriend, or husband in this case. It brought back memories of the first few weeks after Dan had moved into the Manchester flat; when Phil was still trying to impress him. 

“Where are you?” Phil asked.

“Here,” Dan smiled, placing his hand on Phil’s.

Phil laced their fingers together. “You seemed to be far away for a second.”

“You know me, always floating around in the void.” Dan shrugged.

“No time for the void today; I made sweet potato chips so we can watch a movie in bed.” 

Dan gave him a warm smile and pinched his hand softly. “You had me at sweet potato chips.”

“It was my evil plan all along,” Phil said, wiggling his eyebrows in a way that was more awkward than enticing. 

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. 

\--

They opted for Phil’s bedroom since it had a tv and they didn’t feel like sitting on the couch. The movie night progressed as most of their latest movie nights had. Joking, Phil wrapping one arm around Dan and him leaning into Phil, laughter… but everything went south quickly once Dan placed a not so chaste kiss to Phil’s neck. 

Phil moaned softly and gently pushed Dan’s face to his neck in a silent plea for more. Dan wasted no time in letting his treacherous mind take advantage of the situation, leaving a trail of kisses on Phil’s neck and jaw. But when Dan bit on Phil’s earlobe, knowing full well what that would cause, things escalated quickly. Phil rolled on top of Dan and kissed him with urgency, pinning him to the bed. 

For a moment Dan got lost in the moment, but when Phil bit on his neck hard, Dan let out a loud moan that startled them both. 

“Is this ok?” Phil asked, panting.

“I should,” Dan panted. “I should go.”

Phil’s face fell. He didn’t utter another word as he laid back down beside him, but he did give Dan a once over as he left the room, his eyes lingering on Dan's very noticeable erection before looking away. 

Dan stopped by the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. He looked in the mirror and took in his dishevelled look; puffy lips, wild hair and a giant mark on his neck that he _knew_ would turn into a bruise. This had to stop. If they continued down this path, there would be no turning back. He didn’t want to lose Phil again, his heart wouldn’t take it.

That night Dan laid awake for many hours, begging for sleep to finally claim him to no avail; what he didn’t know is that Phil did so too, tears streaming down his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622371739272364032/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-4)


	5. Chapter 5

Phil avoided him for most of the following day; anxiety eating away at Dan’s insides. For someone who talked so much, Dan was really horrible at communicating when he needed to fix things. He could be confrontational, but never with Phil. It was not a strange occurrence for one of their arguments to end with Dan crying out of frustration with a stubborn Phil. 

Dan knew it was in his best interest to seek Phil out himself or this could last for god knows how long. 

Since he didn’t know what to apologize for, he would resort to the usual practice of doing it without words. Small gestures could go a long way with Phil, so he decided to get a few supplies and set things in motion. 

First, he stopped by the Jo Malone store and bought him a selection of fancy candles for his baths. Then, he went to Tesco and got all the supplies for the pumpkin spice cookies they had made for that baking video and ordered their special pizza from Domino’s. Just as he was about to head home, he decided to get ice cream as well, just in case he didn’t manage to bake the cookies on time.

Once he got back, he stood by the door listening, trying to determine where Phil was, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He walked as silently as his lanky body allowed him, trying to stick close to the walls so the floor wouldn’t make any kind of noise. Dan searched all over the apartment but couldn’t find Phil. 

Feeling disappointed and also worried that Phil had left just to get away from him, he set the bags on the kitchen counter and took a deep breath before leaning back onto it. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea. He would need to figure something else out.

The curtains in his old liveshow corner opened swiftly to reveal Phil. “What are you doing?” He asked from behind the glass as he looked at Dan with narrowed eyes. 

Dan yelled and put a hand to his chest. “You scared me. Don’t sneak around, I hate it when you do that!”

Phil shrugged. “I’m not sneaking, I was using the computer to play video games and you were acting weird. What’s in those bags?”

“Oh, umm,” he paused. “I bought some things for a gaming night... if you are up for it.”

Phil crossed his arms, he still looked suspicious but somewhat interested. “What did you get?”

Dan started taking the items out of the bags as he named them. “I have flour, molasses, pumpkin spice and a few other things to bake the pumpkin spice cookies. Umm, also ice cream. We have Domino’s on the way with our usual order, and I also bought you some candles since I noticed that you were out.”

“Me? Out of candles? You underestimate me, Daniel.”

“Oh. I can keep them if you don’t want them.” Dan frowned, feeling uncertain.

“Don’t be silly,” Phil said, finally coming into the kitchen. “I always want new candles." 

Dan smiled at him and Phil finally returned the smile. It was a small step, but he had accepted the peace offer, for now. 

"What game did you have in mind? I can set it up while you bake me those cookies."

Dan shook his head fondly. "Whichever you want. But Phil, aren't you going to share the cookies with me?" 

"We'll see. Maybe I'll feel more gracious after I have beaten you at Mario Kart."

"Keep dreaming, old man. You'll taste the dust of my wheels before you get to the cookies."

"I _will_ win, you'll see!" he exclaimed with a laugh before going about setting the Xbox. 

\--

Once the cookies were done and the pizza had been delivered, they leisurely started to race with other players, taking a few breaks to eat before everything got cold. Dan kept placing third or further down since he felt distracted, still unsure if Phil had forgiven him or not. On the surface, it seemed like everything was forgiven, but Phil hadn’t sat so far away from him _in month_ s, his banter had barely any spice in it and he had taken to throwing potato wedges at Dan if he got first place. 

All in all, Dan’s attempt at achieving peace had been somewhat successful since passive aggressive Phil was slightly better than angry Phil. 

Dan got up with a sigh and started serving the ice cream, adding all the toppings he knew Phil preferred. He was mentally preparing himself for at least a few more days of this, but once he handed Phil his ice cream, the other’s eyes softened. Taking a chance, Dan sat closer to him.

“You got all my favourite toppings,” Phil said softly. 

“Of course, I wanted to get you some of your favourite treats.”

“Why?” Phil questioned, his face betraying nothing.

Dan frowned. “Because I want you to forgive me?”

“Forgive you for what?” Phil pushed.

“For last night!” Dan huffed. “I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

Phil hummed and started eating in silence with a far away look. After a few minutes, he asked: “Dan, why do you think you need to apologize?”

“Because I kissed you? Because I left? I don’t know!” Dan threw his hands up in exasperation.

“If you don’t understand, you shouldn’t be apologizing, don’t you think?”

“I just don’t want you to hate me, I don’t want to lose you,” Dan frowned.

Phil sighed. “I swear you are going to kill me one of these days.” He ran his fingers through his own hair pulling slightly. Dan knew this as a sign that Phil was reaching the limit of his patience. “Why did you kiss me in the first place?”

“I don’t know, I just - it felt right.”

“Exactly! That’s what I meant. It felt right for me too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he looked into Dan’s eyes, not allowing him to hide anymore. “Then why did you leave?”

“It felt… too much. Scary,” Dan said barely above a whisper.

“Dan, if you don’t want to have sex, you shouldn’t feel obligated. I’m sorry that I made you feel that way.” Phil was starting to feel a little nauseous.

“No, no. Of course not. That’s not what I meant. Sorry.”

“Then… I don’t understand. What are you so afraid of? I’m not going to hurt you, you know that, right?”

The truth was that Dan didn’t know that. Or he did, deep down, but he wasn’t sure of it on a subconscious level. But that wasn’t why he left; not really. “I’m afraid to hurt _you_ ,” he finally said, averting his eyes in shame. 

“I wish you didn’t think you need to make that choice for me, Dan. You keep pushing me away. I don’t know how much more I can take,” Phil said, voice cracking. This time he was the one to look away and quickly wipe a tear away. 

Dan’s heart broke for Phil. By trying to protect him, he did the one thing he was attempting to avoid. He grabbed Phil’s chin and softly brought those beautiful eyes onto himself. There was so much that Dan wanted to say, but he couldn’t, not yet, so he did the next best thing and poured all of his feelings into a kiss. 

This time they were both on the same page. Things didn’t escalate past kissing and cuddles, but somehow, the time they spent cleaning after their unofficial date felt more intimate than anything else that might have happened. They splashed each other with soapy water and giggled like idiots between kisses. Every time Dan sneaked a glance at Phil, he found him already staring with a sweet smile. 

That night Phil asked Dan what he wanted to do, trying to keep a more open line of communication. Dan simply took his hand and led him to his own bedroom. In a way, their talk felt like a new beginning, albeit a bit weird since they were already married. 

Without having to walk on eggshells they both felt like they had a bit more confidence to explore their new relationship. Well, Dan wasn’t sure they were in a relationship exactly since they hadn’t discussed it, but he felt, _he hoped_ , that it was what they were doing. Giving their relationship another chance.

Everything felt new and exciting even though it was absolutely familiar. It was like coming home after being away for years at a time. 

For two blissful weeks, Dan lived in a world where anything was possible, a world where he could be happy; but Dan had learned that there was always something lurking, something waiting to destroy him, and the saddest part was that it was himself. He could only go on for so long before he fucked up again, and this time, he dragged Phil down with him. 

He had thought that he was finally really for more, so he kept trying to hint at Phil that was ready to try again. Phil was taking no chances this time, he kept pulling back, giving Dan the time he needed to assess the situation and stop if he wanted to. The kisses were slow, almost lazy. The gentle touches felt like fire on Dan’s skin, there was no hesitation. They finally let their feelings take over and made love. 

When the sun finally rose, Dan woke up with a jolt. He felt disoriented with the little amount of sleep he had gotten. He looked around, Phil was sleeping next to him with a content smile upon his face, but Dan wasn’t able to feel the happiness he had felt the previous night. Instead, his heart was racing and his mind wouldn’t stop supplying scenario after scenario of how Dan would tear them down again. He felt like he could hardly breathe, he needed to get out, so he grabbed his backpack, filled it with some clothes and left before he could finish ruining anything he and Phil might have left after this. 

He wasn’t so sure there would be anything left to salvage but he needed to at least try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622456090289963008/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-5)


	6. Chapter 6

Dan checked into a hotel for the time being. He needed to think, to get away, from Phil, from himself. He didn’t really know. He couldn’t expect Phil to understand him when he couldn’t understand himself. Time and time again, he kept fucking up and Phil ended up being the collateral damage. 

Sadly, Phil was too stubborn to do what was necessary to save himself, so Dan was going to have to do it for him. He was going to leave Phil alone once and for all, even if it broke his own heart. Even if he would cease to be human and become a shadow of his former self, he needed to save Phil. 

\--

Phil woke up feeling more relaxed than he had in a long time. He smiled and stretched his arms above his head with a yawn. The bed next to him was empty and cold, ‘Dan might have gotten up early to make breakfast like he used to,’ he thought. 

He checked the time on his phone and felt his stomach drop, 8:30 am. There was still a chance that Dan was around, right? He got out of bed with the intention of checking the flat but he stopped short. There was a folded note at the end of the bed. 

He took a deep breath to ground himself and opened it. _“I’m sorry.”_

Phil felt his soul leave his body. He was tired, _so tired_. He looked at the note again. “I’m sorry,” it still said. ‘Bullshit,’ he thought. ‘I’m such an idiot.’

He wanted to yell, he wanted to shake Dan and ask him why, but Dan wasn’t there, neither was his backpack and judging by the state of the closet, he wasn’t planning on returning for a while. He ripped the offending note into small pieces and threw them onto the bed before locking himself in his own bedroom. 

He turned off his phone and got into bed, covering himself up to the head, feeling the darkness comfort him. He let sleep pull him in and there he laid for the rest of the day. 

By the time he woke up, it was dark outside. He felt stupid walking around the flat, pretending that he wasn’t checking for any sign that Dan had returned, even briefly. He went through the notifications on his phone, and he felt vile rising in his throat at the thought that several people had reached out to him, to see how he was doing, why he hadn’t gone to meetings, why he hadn’t answered the phone. Apparently many people worried about him, they cared. But Dan was not one of those people. 

_“Do you hate me?”_ he texted Dan. He needed to know. What other explanation could there be?

He was left on read for a few minutes, but when he finally set the phone down, he heard a ding. _“I could never hate you.”_

“Dan, you are so full of shit,” he typed but he ended up deleting it without sending. 

He felt hurt, heartbroken even, but above all, he felt anger. He felt like Dan had been leading him on. Even if it wasn’t on purpose, Dan had played hot and cold with him more times than he could count. He was angry at Dan for hurting him like that but above all, he was angry at himself because he couldn’t help but love Dan. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to stop loving him. 

He felt a migraine coming but he couldn’t stop thinking. His mind kept going back to when it first happened when everything was ruined. 

He knew that Dan was to blame too. After all, they had both said hurtful things. But he blamed himself more because he was older, he should have been the adult. Dan was only 21 at the time and Phil knew he was nowhere near ready to come out; that he could barely accept himself. Phil had just felt tired and defeated, so he’d pushed Dan to come out. He’d been ready to leave everything behind for Dan if it came to it, but apparently, Dan had not been ready to do the same for him and that hurt. It hurt so much, to know that he loved Dan more that Dan had ever loved him. Or at least that’s what he had told himself. 

He had waited and waited for Dan to reach out and say he was sorry, or yell at Phil, anything; but instead, he had closed himself up. It felt like he couldn’t reach Dan anymore, his walls were all the way up, even more than when they had first met. Phil had done that. He had been the cause of Dan feeling so terrified that he had retreated far into himself. 

After months of waiting for Dan to decide to fight for their relationship, Phil had finally given up. He had offered Dan his friendship as the last thread of hope and luckily Dan had latched onto it. It had been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he would always choose to keep Dan in his life in whichever way he could, and a curse since it had been the final nail on the coffin of their relationship. 

Phil had been stupid enough to think that things had changed, that they had grown from their past mistakes, but it seemed that they were bound to make them over and over again.

\--

Days quickly turned into weeks; weeks without any news from Dan. Not a single text, not a public tweet or signal that he was ok either. Phil hated himself for worrying, but he couldn’t help it. 

One morning the doorbell rang and he all but ran to the intercom. “Hello?”

“Phil Lester?”

“Yes?” 

“You have mail. You need to sign, please.”

“Right. I’ll be right down.”

As soon as he closed the door to the flat, he leaned back onto the door and opened the brown envelope. It was a set of divorce papers and they had already been signed by Dan.

There was nothing else in the envelope, not even a note. Phil hadn’t thought he had it in him to be shocked by anything Dan did, but he had been wrong. For the first time since Dan had left him, he cried. He cried until his head hurt until he felt like his eyes couldn’t produce any more tears. He had never felt so absolutely helpless in his entire life. 

No longer able to keep this to himself, he did the only thing he could think of; he rang his mum. 

Once she had assured him that she was alone and nobody would bother them, he cried and told her the entire story as he walked aimlessly around the flat. He cried so much that Kath thought he was going to be sick. 

She asked Phil to never keep something like this from her again, not because she was mad, which she understandably was, but because she could have been there for him from the start. They talked for hours, finally letting years of hurt and regret come to light. 

In the end, Kath asked him if he still loved Dan and after a long silence, he had said yes. 

“The path is clear then. Don’t allow Dan to keep running. You are both stuck in this endless cycle of miscommunication and hurt. You need to speak to him in person.”

“But he’s not talking to me. He mailed me the divorce papers when the return address is like 15 minutes away; that’s how much he wants to avoid me.”

“Phil, listen to me. That boy loves you, I know he does. He’s just scared,” she sighed. “I’m going to be honest with you now, do you think you can handle it?”

“Yes,” he whispered. 

“Your father and I, we’ve had problems, you know? We never showed them in front of you because we didn’t feel like it was fair. But there was a time when I didn’t know if we would make it. So one day, I dropped you and Martyn off at your grandma’s and I went out for coffee with him.” She cleared her throat, her voice heavy with emotion. “So I said: Nigel, I love you, but I can’t be here for you if you don’t let me. It is time that we talk about this or move on because we are hurting each other and I can’t take it anymore.”

Phil didn’t know what to think; to him, his parents had always been the epitome of perfection. “And what did he say?”

“That was the first time in seven years of marriage that I saw your father cry. That day we promised that we would never keep stuff from each other if it was about our marriage. Of course, everyone needs to keep a piece of themselves secret, but if you want your relationship to last, you must communicate and tell each other the good and the bad. If you’ve felt hurt by something and why, ask for forgiveness if you made a mistake, and above all, keep finding ways to fall for each other over and over again.” 

“I - I don’t know what to say,” Phil said, looking down at the divorce papers he still held in his hand. “Do you think there’s anything left to fight for?”

“That’s something that only you will know in your heart, but if you ask me, I think there is.” 

He took a deep breath and threw the damn envelope onto the coffee table and started looking for a pen. “Thank you, Mum.” 

“You are welcome, child. And Phil?”

“Yes?”

“Let me know what you decide.” 

“I will, good night.”

“Good night.”

\--

Only a few streets away, Dan sat on a horribly uncomfortable Ikea chair in a stingy flat he had rented last minute with nothing but a few boxes of basics he’d bought. He hated it, it wasn’t home. Home would only ever be where Phil was. 

He had a night of fitful sleep on the mattress he only bothered to throw on the floor before the mailman woke him up. The divorce papers were back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates coming every day until it's completed. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622543229481582592/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-6)


	7. Chapter 7

Unable to deal with the fact that Phil had really signed the papers that easily and mailed them to him without even a text, he dropped the envelope on the plastic coffee table that was left behind by the previous tenant and decided to call it a day. It didn’t matter that it was 10 a.m; there was no point in staying awake when all he could do was suffer. 

He returned to the mattress and crawled back under the blankets ignoring the fact that he had just knocked over 2 glasses of water he had left beside it. For a moment, he wished that he would have made the effort to get himself a comfortable bed, but deep down he knew that he didn’t deserve it.

Time lost all meaning. He couldn’t remember anything he had done during that week. Days blurred together in a fog of despair. How long had it been since he got the papers back? He wasn’t sure. A week probably.

Food. He decided that today he needed to eat something other than crackers, so he ordered something from the Chinese restaurant around the corner. After finally fueling his body, he felt a bit more present in the moment. He decided to pick up the empty bags of crisps and dirty glasses to improve his mood a little bit. It was nice not to have to stumble around the flat to get from the fridge to the… mattress.

Dan stood in the middle of the flat and took a deep breath. He still didn’t feel right; he was sweaty and sticky. Maybe a shower would finally give him the push he needed to get it over with. 

One boiling hot shower and a change of clothes later, Dan still couldn’t bring himself to open that god damn envelope. It sat exactly where he had dropped it when it arrived. 

He was going to need moral support to continue with the divorce without succumbing to the desire to run back to Phil and beg for forgiveness. 

Dan started looking between the sheets, pulling and flipping as he cursed until he finally found his phone. 

Already regretting his decision, he tapped on his second emergency contact. “Hi, Bry?”

\--

Bryonee looked positively upset with the news. Dan expected her to be mad, to yell at him, but instead, she had given him a tight hug and called him an idiot man. 

Now they sat uncomfortably on the mattress, side by side, silently staring at the envelope. 

“Do you want me to do it?” She asked.

“Do you _want_ to do it?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Not really, but I will if you can’t.”

“No. I think I need to do it myself,” he sighed. 

Bryonee nodded and held onto his right hand tightly as he grabbed the envelope. They stared at it for a moment before Dan finally let her hand go and pulled the papers out. 

“What?” She frowned.

“It’s ripped!” Dan exclaimed, his stomach twisting into knots. 

“Open it!” 

Dan unfolded the papers and was shocked to see Phil’s handwriting across the pages. _“If you don’t love me, say it to my face.”_ The shaky and messy font indicated that Phil had been extremely angry when he wrote that.

“What are you going to do?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Do you think I should -”

“Text him! Text him text him text him. Right now!” She urged him.

Her energetic response was what he needed to finally react. “Ok! Ok,” before he could chicken out, he opened his contacts and tapped on Phil’s name. Of course, this resulted in him accidentally calling Phil and them both tapping repeatedly on the screen to cancel it before Phil could pick up amidst a waterfall of curses and shouting. They managed to cancel it but only after it had rung a few times; it seemed Phil was not planning on answering.

Dan opened his conversation with Phil and sent a quick “WTF?”

“What’s that about?” Bryonee asked, pointing to the previous messages.

“That’s from when I left before he woke up.”

“And _that_ was your answer?” She covered her face with her hands. “You are such a nightmare, Dan.”

“ _I know,"_ he huffed. "that’s why I think this is the right thing to do. Phil needs to move on with his life and find someone who makes him happy. I’m too damaged for that and he deserves better.”

Bryonee rolled her eyes. “We’ve talked about this before. You don’t get to choose that for him. Besides, it sounds like you think Phil is too stupid to know what’s right for himself and that’s really insulting, don’t you think?”

“That’s not-” He groaned. “ _You_ … are taking my words out of context.”

“No, _you_ are not making any sense,” She said, mocking his tone. 

Dan’s phone dinged. _“If you want me to sign the papers, tell me you don’t love me and say it to my face. What’s so hard to understand?”_

Before Dan could reply, Phil sent another message. _“I’m blocking you. We’ll speak face to face or not at all.”_

“Well, that settles it,” said Bryonee. “What are you wearing?”

“I’m not going, Bry.”

“You are! If you don’t go, he won’t sign the papers. You know how he is when something gets into his head.” She grabbed a pack of crisps from the coffee table and opened it, popping a crisp into her mouth. “And if you don’t go, I’ll kill you.”

“You can’t take sides!” he whined. 

“I can and I will. You are being an ass, or more like you need to pull your head out of your own ass and go get your man,” she said, popping another crisp into her mouth and laying down on the mattress. “This mattress _reeks_ , by the way.”

Dan pressed his lips into a line. “I know…” 

\--

Dan put on the only clean change of clothes left and slowly made his way back hom- his way back to the flat. He wasn’t sure if it would be wrong for him to enter with his keys, but he had no other choice since Phil didn’t open the door for him when he rang the bell.

He dropped his keys into the bowl and stood there for a few moments. He hated the fact that he felt home even though this wasn’t his place anymore. 

“Are you planning on actually coming in or are you just going to stay there?” Phil said in an icy tone.

Dan spun around, startled by Phil’s sudden appearance. “Yeah, I was just about to…”

“Well, come on,” Phil said extending his hand, his face betraying nothing. 

Dan took his hand and followed him to the patio. “Why are we here?”

“The day is nice and I need air. Why are _you_ here?” Phil asked, raising one eyebrow.

Dan hesitated but took a seat beside Phil. “You know why,” He ran a hand through his hair. “The papers, you said you wanted to talk.”

Phil took several deep breaths trying to ground himself. “No, I said I wanted _you_ to talk. I think I’ve done enough talking and you haven't done enough listening, so how about we try the other way around?” He was trying to calm down, but it was difficult. He was still angry, but he tried to remember what his mum said. 

“Phil, please -” Dan looked anywhere but Phil. 

“No. If you want to get rid of me, the least you could do is say it to my face,” Phil waited, but Dan remained silent. “Tell me that you don’t love me anymore,” he whispered.

Dan tried, but he couldn't get the words out. It wasn't true. “I - I can’t,” he said with a trembling voice. 

Phil grabbed Dan’s chin softly, forcing him to look him in the eye and whispered. “Tell me you don’t love me. I deserve to know. We can’t go on like this.”

Dan finally broke down and started sobbing as he grabbed onto Phil’s shirt for dear life. Phil held him, whispering into his ear that everything was going to be ok, reminding him to breathe as he rubbed circles on Dan’s back.

It took him a long time to calm down, but after releasing a big chunk of the tension he had been holding onto, he felt finally ready to talk; or as ready as he was ever going to be. 

This time, he looked into Phil’s eyes and said it. “I think we should get a divorce.”

Phil frowned but nodded, waiting for Dan to elaborate. “Ok, why?”

Dan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m just constantly having this battle.”

“What are you fighting against?”

“Myself," Dan said, pulling a loose thread on his jumper. "You deserve better.”

Phil frowned. “I don’t want better. I want _you_ , idiot.”

It was impossible for Dan to understand. “Why? Why do you keep putting up with me when I keep holding you back?”

Phil looked up to the sky. “Dan. We’ve been over this so many times. You are _not_ holding me back,” he sighed. “You are worthy of love, of happiness.”

“But I’ve hurt you so many times. I can never get my shit together. You deserve someone who is not fucking terrified of the past and the future, of living their truth” There. He had finally said it.

“Tell me. Tell me what you find so terrifying about it.”

“It’s like… everything is ok when I can forget and just live in the present and it’s us, _just us_. But the moment I think of the past, of what we had before...” he shook his head. “The future is scary too because I’m afraid to make the same mistakes again and lose you.” He stared at the cherry blossom tree, it looked shrivelled and somewhat dead, like him. "Even though we have been outed, I don't feel like I'm really out. It just feels like a layer of protection has been taken away from me. The opportunity to come out on my own terms as well." 

Phil nodded, allowing Dan to continue with no interruptions. 

"I wanted to tell my family, I wanted to make a video to tell people my story, but now it's too late. They all know, and I didn't get a say in any of it." Dan leaned back on the chair, finally letting his body relax.

Phil understood. That was exactly what he had felt like when he'd been outed. "You can still make that video. When my friend sent that screenshot of my profile on that dating website, adding all of my friends to the group chat and telling them myself really helped. It's like, taking control of your own narrative." 

Dan considered for a moment, maybe he could still share his story. 

Phil bumped his socked foot against Dan's to get his attention. “And about the past, that’s why I asked to talk. Whatever happens today, we need to talk about it. We need to put what happened to rest. Do you think you can do that?”

Dan took time to really consider his answer. He was still scared, but Phil was right; they needed to move on. “I’m ready.” 

Phil shifted his chair so he was facing Dan and Dan followed suit. “Ok. May I start?” asked Phil.

Dan hadn’t expected that, but he nodded anyway.

Phil took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands up as Dan tried to interrupt him. “Don’t. This is my turn, you’ll have to wait until yours.” Once Dan nodded, he continued. “I’m sorry for asking you to come out. I knew that you weren’t ready for it. I was selfish, I just wanted it to stop. I was hurting too, so I asked you to do the one thing that I knew it wasn’t my place to ask,” he paused. “I’m also sorry for blaming you. I’m sorry for breaking us up, but especially for blaming you for not fighting for us. _I_ didn’t fight for us either. I just told myself that you didn’t love me enough to try, but the truth is that I was terrified that you would never forgive me so I shut you out.” Phil let out a sigh of relief and gestured Dan to speak.

“I’m sorry too. I acted like a child. I have always regretted not coming out when you asked me to because I knew it would have been an absolute shit show, but you would’ve been there with me like you always have. I feel so embarrassed about all the things I said. I was never ashamed of you, I was ashamed of myself.” His voice cracked. “I could never be ashamed of you, I love you so much.”

Phil smiled. “I love you too, I just wish that you would stop trying to protect me from yourself. I chose you ten years ago, for better or for worse. You’ve spoiled me, there’s nobody else for me. No one will come close to how amazing you are.”

“I’m sorry that the worse has been far greater than the better,” Dan said with a sad smile.

“It hasn’t, you idiot. And we still have decades.”

“Do we?” Dan hesitated. “After everything we’ve been through?” he said, but what he really meant was ‘After everything I’ve done?’

“Of course. I’m not letting you run away from me,” he smiled. “Now, come here,” Phil said, opening his arms.

Dan smiled and climbed onto Phil’s lap awkwardly. “I don’t think we fit in this garden chair, Love,” he said with a kiss. “Let’s go inside.”

Phil laughed and patted Dan’s bum, silently asking him to get up. “Alright. I will start the fire, you get the divorce papers,” he said.

As the forsaken brown envelope burned in the fireplace, they made new vows: To never go to bed angry, to never keep their feelings from each other or shut the other out, to love and cherish each other until their last day, for better or for worse. 

They upheld those vows from that day forward, living day by day but always facing into the future and only looking back in fondness since they had learned from their mistakes and grown from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a very short epilogue to come!
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622636767072403456/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-chapter-7)


	8. Epilogue

In June of the following year, Dan finally posted his coming out video. He didn't go into detail about the wedding, but he did let everyone know that he needed to take a hold of the narrative about his private life and his sexuality. It was his story to tell after all, and he did so in great detail, sharing every part of his journey that he thought could help people still stuck in the place he had been. 

The first person to see it had been Phil, of course, and he had been extremely supportive. It had hit him hard to learn some of Dan's story for the first time, but he had praised Dan for finally opening up in an attempt to help people. For being so strong. He decided to post his own coming out video as well, in a much different fashion; the Phil way. He did it in support of Dan, for the people who felt like they were alone in their suffering, and above all, he did it for himself. The conversation they had opened that afternoon on the patio never closed. Finally sharing all the repressed feelings of guilt and shame had helped him realize that he needed to tell his story as well. 

Two weeks later, on the one year anniversary of their not-quite-deliberate wedding, Daniel Howell and Phil Lester renewed their vows. They promised to love each other for the rest of their lives once again, choosing to add a new wedding ring to the original one as they were not trying to forget the path that had brought them here, but to remember it for it had made them the people they were today.

The sun shined bright in the sky for the special occasion, as if it was shining only for them. The doors of the city hall opened, letting the grooms out into the waiting arms of their relatives amidst a rain of red rose petals; their white suits creating a beautiful contrast to all the colour surrounding them.

The day was filled with love and laughter, and even a few tears of happiness, of pride. New pictures joined the family albums and their social media, pride flags flying in the background. The public only received what they willingly shared, no sneaking, no gossip, and above all, no shame.

This time it was on their terms, this time it was forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for accompanying me on this journey, I appreciate it more than you will ever know. Thank you to everyone who helped me with the writing of this fic, my beta, my friends and everyone who sent me anons cheering me on. I don't usually write angst and I gave it my best shot, hopefully this story has meant something for you.
> 
> Comments and Kudos will be greatly appreciated. This fic took a few weeks to write and angst is not my forte so please let me know what you thought. 
> 
> Notice: Some dialogues are based on actual conversations I've had so please be understanding with all the characters since the person in question might read the comments to see if anybody hates them. (Eyes emoji).
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr: [Succubusphan](http://Succubusphan.tumblr.com/)
> 
> In case you wish to reblog the fic: [Tumblr Link](https://succubusphan.tumblr.com/post/622727771910750208/dont-let-the-sun-go-down-on-me-epilogue)
> 
> Tomorrow I'm posting a chaptered fic, same schedule like this one. It's set in a kingdom circa 15th century, Phil is travelling between towns and a sexy stranger helps him. This description is shit because I don't have a summary but it's basically a slow burn with a twist. It's pg13 but there will be an e rated timestamp posted with one of the chapters, not telling which one because that would be a spoiler.


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